Projects in MalibuProjects in MalibuDiegetic Debris Menu
Rethinking the Start Menu
A Start Menu is one of the most conventional pieces of game UI. It works, it's familiar, and it's usually designed to get out of the player's way.
For this UI Forge study, I wanted to challenge that assumption.
Unreal Engine has some incredibly powerful features that are usually associated with gameplay, environments, VFX, or cinematics. Chaos Destruction is one of them. Destruction is visually exciting and, for some reason, watching things break apart is incredibly satisfying.
So I started with a simple question:
What happens if I take one of Unreal's coolest features and push it outside of its usual context, into UI?
That led to the Diegetic Debris Menu.
Instead of displaying menu text as a conventional overlay, the menu exists physically in the game world. Each option is represented by a pile of fractured debris. When selected, the debris rebuilds into a readable word. Navigate away and it collapses back into debris.
The goal wasn't simply to make a menu look different. I wanted to create a different experience from interacting with a familiar piece of UI. 
